Bolton Wanderers: What is the mood at Trotters as they get back on home soil?
- Published
Coventry had three goals disallowed as they were held to a goalless draw by Bolton
A week can be a long time in football - and, at some points over the past seven days, it may have felt like seven years for Bolton Wanderers fans, who worry for their club's very existence.
However, their League One game against Coventry City finally took place despite tickets only going on sale 28 hours before kick-off.
It proved to be an historic occasion too as Bolton fielded their youngest-ever side, with an average age of 19, in collecting their first point of the season from a goalless draw.
BBC Sport spoke to fans and those who know the club best to find out what it was like to finally get to see their team play at home for the first time in almost four months.
'It's not a football club, it's a circus'
Saturday's match was the first game Bolton have hosted since April, after their final home Championship fixture of last season against Brentford was called off by the English Football League when the Trotters players went on strike over unpaid wages.
A well-documented summer of discontent followed at the University of Bolton Stadium, with the club still in financial trouble after entering administration in May and beginning the season with a 12-point deduction.
A planned takeover by Football Ventures was then "on the brink of completion" before it was blocked by a court order awarded to former Watford owner Laurence Bassini on Thursday, who tried to buy Bolton from former owner Ken Anderson in April.
"You can't even comprehend or put into words what it's been like. It's not a football club anymore, it's a circus," said Sam Murphy, who was previously a season ticket holder at Bolton but has not bought one this season - because none have actually gone on sale.
"It's very unusual. I look on Twitter to see if there are any updates and there are always rumours going round on all the fan forums everyday saying this or that is happening.
"You just don't know what's true and you read things and think 'that can't be true' and then you see it tweeted and it is true.
"Today feels like a win, however. It doesn't make a massive difference to the table but come the end of the season I think we could be there or thereabouts in regards to staying up."
'You're checking whether the club still exists'
Protests by supporters have been commonplace at Bolton this year
Both of Wanderers' games so far this season nearly did not go ahead.
Their opening match at Wycombe had been under threat of suspension until Bolton proved their financial viability to the English Football League (EFL). Supporters responded: 1,600 of them travelled to Buckinghamshire.
Ticket sales for Saturday's visit of the Sky Blues were then halted after they were due to go on sale on Wednesday, with no reason given for the delay.
They finally went on sale on Friday, with nearly 9,000 snapped up in just a few hours after the EFL said there was "no legitimate reason" to postpone the fixture.
For Wanderers supporter Alec Rigby, the focus for Bolton's fanbase has not been what has been happening on the pitch, but off it.
"The football has taken a back seat - you're not even thinking about what game is being played or what might happen, all you're checking on is what's happening with the business or administration," he told BBC Sport.
"You completely forget there's a game that's meant to be going on. It's whether there's going to be a football club in existence, rather than who you're playing and what the score is going to be.
"It's such an unusual thought, that you wouldn't have somewhere to come on a Saturday, that you wouldn't have a team to support.
"That's the main worry. It's all seemed, in the past year or two, that it's never going to happen yet it's suddenly felt like it could possibly happen in the past few months.
"What's going through your mind is that part of your identity could actually be gone."
'We could work for the Financial Times next'
A strained summer off the field has presented a unique problem for Bolton News' Bolton Wanderers correspondent Marc Iles, who is reporting on more than just what happens on the pitch.
"We could go and work for the Financial Times after this because you find yourself talking to administrators, accountants and solicitors a lot more than you do footballers nowadays," said Iles.
"The fans don't want to hear that sort of thing, everybody wants to hear that the football club is fine and is ticking along nicely."
For BBC Radio Manchester's Bolton Wanderers commentator Jack Dearden, it has been one of the more eventful periods in his three decades of covering the club.
"It would be a joy and a pleasure to concentrate on the football," said Dearden.
"You couldn't make it up. It's been a total soap opera and, to be honest, I think that's been the case for longer than the past six or seven months."
The script of that soap opera could be no better emphasised than by the events of the past week, with its court orders and delayed ticket sales putting Saturday's fixture in doubt.
"Laurence Bassini's court order happened so far out of left field," added Iles. "I was literally told the completion of the takeover was going to happen at 6pm on Thursday and that [the order] happened at 5pm.
"It's very difficult at this point to say where the club will be because we are living week to week. Just when you think it's reached its zenith, something else preposterous happens."